Food and Energy Demands Revision Notes | GCSE AQA Higher Geography

1. Why Food and Energy Demand Matters

Food, water, and energy are the three foundations of human development. Without reliable access to all three, communities cannot grow economically, maintain health, or reduce poverty. This lesson focuses on food and energy — two resources under increasing pressure as the global population rises and living standards improve.

As countries develop, their populations consume more food and more energy. A growing middle class in countries such as China and India demands more meat, processed food, and electricity — all of which require far greater resources to produce than basic staple diets and low-energy lifestyles. The challenge is meeting this demand sustainably.

For AQA GCSE Geography, you need to understand the pressures on food and energy supply, the trends shaping how we produce and consume both, and the economic and environmental consequences of those trends. These spec points appear on Paper 2 under resource management.

2. Changing Food Demands: Exports, Seasons, and Organic Produce

Think about the last time you bought strawberries in December, or avocados from Peru in a UK supermarket. Both of those purchases reflect a major shift in how the world produces and trades food. Consumers in high-income countries (HICs) now expect to buy almost any food at any time of year — regardless of whether it is in season locally.

Low-income countries are increasingly growing high-value crops for export rather than food for their own populations. This brings foreign income and employment, but it also diverts land and water away from local food production. In Kenya, for example, large areas around Lake Naivasha are used to grow cut flowers and vegetables for European supermarkets [VERIFY exact hectare figures].

Alongside year-round demand, there is a growing market for organic produce — food grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers. Organic food commands higher prices, which can benefit farmers, but it typically requires more land to produce the same yield. Demand for organic food has grown steadily in the UK and other HICs as consumers become more aware of health and environmental concerns.

The all-year demand for seasonal food is directly connected to the next key issue: food miles. When strawberries are out of season in the UK, they are flown in from Spain, Egypt, or further afield. That journey has a cost — not just financial, but environmental.

3. Food Miles, Carbon Footprints, and Local Sourcing

Every kilometre a food product travels adds to its carbon footprint. Air freight is the most carbon-intensive transport method — flying a kilogram of green beans from Kenya to the UK produces significantly more CO2 than shipping the same beans by sea. As global food trade has expanded, the total food miles accumulated by the average UK shopping basket have increased substantially.

In response to growing concern about food miles, there has been a move towards local sourcing — buying food produced closer to where it is consumed. Supermarkets increasingly label products with their country of origin, and farmers' markets, box schemes, and 'buy local' campaigns have grown in popularity across the UK.

Local sourcing reduces transport emissions and supports domestic farmers. However, it is not always straightforwardly 'greener'. A tomato grown in a heated greenhouse in the UK in winter may have a larger carbon footprint than one grown outdoors in Spain and transported by lorry. The full picture requires comparing all stages of production, not just the distance travelled.

The tension between global food trade and local sourcing is a classic AQA evaluation topic. You need to be able to argue both sides: global trade brings economic benefits to LICs and consumer choice to HICs, but it increases carbon emissions and can undermine local food security. Local sourcing reduces food miles but may not always reduce total environmental impact.

4. The Trend Towards Agribusiness

Alongside changes in where food comes from, there has been a major shift in how food is produced. Traditional small-scale farming has increasingly given way to agribusiness — large, commercially run operations that treat farming as an industry.

Agribusinesses use advanced technology such as GPS-guided machinery, precision irrigation, and genetically modified (GM) crops to maximise yields and minimise costs. They benefit from economies of scale — the larger the operation, the lower the cost per unit of food produced. This has made food cheaper in real terms for consumers in HICs over recent decades.

• Large land holdings farmed intensively with machinery, reducing labour costs
• Use of agrochemicals (fertilisers, pesticides) to maximise yield per hectare
• Vertical integration — companies controlling multiple stages from seed to supermarket shelf
• Contract farming — agribusinesses contracting smallholders in LICs to grow specific crops
• Potential environmental concerns: soil degradation, water pollution from run-off, loss of biodiversity

The environmental concerns associated with agribusiness are significant. Intensive monocultures — growing a single crop across vast areas — deplete soil nutrients and reduce biodiversity. Heavy use of fertilisers can cause eutrophication in nearby water bodies, where excess nutrients trigger algal blooms that deplete oxygen and kill aquatic life.

The growth of agribusiness connects directly back to the food miles issue covered earlier. Large agribusinesses are often the suppliers behind global food supply chains, growing high-value crops in LICs for export to HIC supermarkets. Understanding agribusiness helps explain why food miles have increased — it is the industrial model that makes long-distance food trade economically viable at scale.

5. The Changing Energy Mix

Now that we have covered food demand, the same principle applies to energy: demand is rising, supply is under pressure, and the way we meet that demand is changing. The energy mix — the combination of sources a country uses — has shifted significantly over the past few decades, and that shift is accelerating.

For most of the 20th century, the UK and other HICs relied heavily on fossil fuels — coal for electricity generation, oil for transport, and gas for heating. This reliance built entire industries and infrastructure systems around fossil fuel extraction and combustion. However, domestic supplies of coal, gas, and oil in the UK have declined significantly.

North Sea oil and gas production peaked in the late 1990s and has fallen steadily since. UK coal mining has effectively ended, with the last deep coal mine closing in 2015. As domestic supplies have reduced, the UK has become increasingly dependent on imported fossil fuels — raising concerns about energy security, cost, and carbon emissions.

The chart above illustrates the broad shift in the UK energy mix. Coal, once dominant, now contributes a negligible share. Gas remains significant but is declining. Renewables — particularly wind — have grown rapidly and now account for a substantial portion of UK electricity generation [VERIFY exact current figures]. This shift reflects both policy decisions and falling costs for renewable technology.

The growing significance of renewables is driven by three factors: falling technology costs (solar panel prices have dropped dramatically since 2010), government policy targets (the UK has committed to net zero by 2050), and public pressure to reduce carbon emissions. Offshore wind in particular has become a major part of the UK energy mix, with large wind farms in the North Sea generating electricity for millions of homes.

6. Economic and Environmental Issues of Energy Exploitation

Every energy source comes with trade-offs. The AQA specification requires you to assess the economic and environmental issues associated with exploiting energy sources — which means you need to be able to argue both the benefits and the drawbacks of fossil fuels and renewables.

A common exam trap is to treat renewables as entirely problem-free. They are not. Offshore wind farms require significant upfront investment, and their construction can disturb seabed habitats. Large hydroelectric dams — such as the Three Gorges Dam in China — displaced approximately 1.2 million people and flooded ecosystems. The environmental cost of building renewable infrastructure must be weighed against the long-term carbon savings.

Fossil fuels, meanwhile, carry both economic and environmental risks. Economically, countries that rely heavily on imported oil and gas are vulnerable to price shocks — as the UK experienced following the 2022 energy crisis, when gas prices surged after supply disruptions. Environmentally, burning fossil fuels remains the primary driver of climate change, with consequences that affect food production, water availability, and human health globally.

The shift away from fossil fuels and towards renewables is therefore both an environmental necessity and an economic challenge. Countries must balance the cost of transitioning their energy infrastructure against the long-term costs of climate change — a judgement that sits at the heart of resource management debates at GCSE and beyond.

7. Exam Technique: Getting Full Marks on Resource Management Questions

Resource management questions on Paper 2 frequently use command words such as 'explain', 'assess', and 'to what extent'. Each demands a different response structure. Getting the structure right is how you move from Level 1 (describing) to Level 3 (evaluating with a supported judgement).

Worked example: How to Answer: 'Assess the issues associated with increasing food miles' [9 marks]

Assess the issues associated with the increasing number of food miles travelled. [9 marks]

1. Assess = weigh up the issues (both sides) and reach a supported judgement. — Do not just list problems. You must show awareness of complexity and conclude with an overall judgement.
2. Increasing food miles raise carbon footprints because air-freighted produce generates far more CO2 per kilogram than locally sourced food. This contributes to climate change, which in turn threatens future food security. — Use a causal chain: food miles → transport emissions → CO2 → climate change → food security risk. This shows geographical understanding, not just description.
3. However, high-value food exports provide vital income and employment for farmers in LICs such as Kenya, where flower and vegetable exports support livelihoods and contribute to economic development. — A strong 'assess' answer acknowledges that food miles are not purely negative — they create real economic benefits for producing countries. This is what separates Level 2 from Level 3.
4. Moves towards local sourcing can reduce transport emissions, but a UK-grown tomato in a heated winter greenhouse may have a larger carbon footprint than a Spanish tomato transported by lorry. Local sourcing is not always the lower-carbon option. — This nuance shows evaluative thinking — you are questioning a seemingly obvious solution. Examiners reward this kind of critical analysis.
5. Overall, increasing food miles present significant environmental issues through higher carbon emissions, but the economic benefits to LIC producers mean a blanket reduction in food trade would create new social and economic problems. A more targeted approach — reducing air freight while maintaining sea-freight trade — offers a more balanced solution. — The conclusion must directly answer the question. Use 'overall' or 'on balance' to signal your judgement. Tie it back to evidence from your paragraphs.

Answer: A Level 3 response weighs environmental costs (carbon emissions, climate change) against economic benefits (LIC income, employment), evaluates the limits of local sourcing, and reaches a clear overall judgement about the relative significance of the issues.

Food and energy demands are fundamentally linked: growing food requires energy, and producing energy requires resources. The trends covered in this lesson — rising food miles, agribusiness, shifting energy mixes, and declining domestic fossil fuel supplies — all reflect the same underlying pressure: a growing global population demanding more from a finite planet. Understanding these connections is what AQA examiners are looking for in the highest-mark responses.